KNOM Radio Missionhttp://www.knom.org/wp
96.1 FM | 780 AM | Yours for Western AlaskaTue, 31 Mar 2015 20:48:54 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1Outages hit GCI Mobile Users in Gambell, YK Deltahttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2014/11/13/outages-hit-gci-mobile-users-in-gambell-yk-delta/
http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2014/11/13/outages-hit-gci-mobile-users-in-gambell-yk-delta/#commentsThu, 13 Nov 2014 23:58:17 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=12919Cell service from GCI was interrupted in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and Gambell this week, and while it's been restored in the YK Delta, service remained out in Gambell as of Thursday.]]>http://www.knom.org/wp-audio/2014/11/2014-11-13-GCI-outage-in-WAK.mp3

Mobile phone users on GCI’s network have been experiencing some hiccups in two separate areas of western Alaska, but from unrelated problems.

Cellular customers in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta lost 2G service—simple text and voice call capabilities—due to a connection failure in Bethel Monday, where cellular signals from throughout the region converge. But Bethel itself uses a 3G network—a generally faster service capable of transmitting more data like mobile internet—and so Bethel’s own cell network was unaffected.

GCI spokesperson David Morris said the issue cropped up due to a connector failing in the central switch that handles calls. He said 2G service was restored Tuesday.

But 2G service remains down in Gambell on St. Lawrence Island as of Thursday, where a cell service blackout has been going on since Tuesday morning. Service in nearby Savoonga appears to be unaffected.

Morris said important equipment was fried during an electrical surge sometimes early Tuesday.

“There must have been some type of power surge originating from a streetlight that’s located near the CO, or central office, which effectively is the brains of the telephone network,” Morris said. “That induced some type of significant power surge that must have damaged all the equipment there.”

Morris said technicians were en route to Gambell Thursday but there was no firm timeline for when cell service would be restored. “We [are] currently in the process of going out to Gambell with replacement gear and then hopefully it will be a quick fix after that.”

While GCI is moving quickly to address its 2G service interruptions in the YK Delta and Gambell, Morris says the much-touted 3G service for Nome has been delayed, but should be switched on before the end of the year.

“It looks like it may slip a month,” he said, referring to the launch date that had pegged mid-November for the opening of 3G service. “We just need to get all the equipment in place. There’s no particular reason other than just the amount of time it takes to get these thing on.”

In addition to Nome, Morris said GCI is trying to roll out 3G service in a number of other communities, including nine around Bethel, as well as Unalakleet, Kotzebue, Sand Point, and King Salmon.

The pope has named a new bishop for the Fairbanks diocese, appointing a new leader for the 46 parishes and roughly 18,000 Catholics in northern Alaska.

Pope Francis has asked Chad Zielinski, an active military chaplain at Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, to lead the nation’s northernmost diocese.

Reverend Zielinski was ordained a priest in Gaylord, Michigan, in 1996. He was an active duty Air Force serviceman for four years, and has served as a military chaplain for several years, including assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan. He moved into his current position at Eielson in 2012.

The Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks is one of three Catholic dioceses in Alaska, along with the Diocese of Anchorage and Juneau. The Fairbanks diocese covers a huge swath of land: 409,849 square miles stretching from the Seward Peninsula and the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in the west to the Canadian border to the east, all the way north to Barrow.

The Fairbanks diocese filed for bankruptcy in 2008 amid hundreds of claims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests and volunteers over a span of decades. In 2010 the diocese emerged from bankruptcy with agreements to pay nearly $10 million in damages to settle more than 150 allegations of sexual abuse dating back to the 1950s.

The Alaska Dispatch News reports that diocese priest Clint Landry was arrested in October on federal charges related to producing and acquiring child pornography. The diocese said in an October release that Landry was suspended from ministerial duties in May, when the diocese “became aware of possible computer misuse” and alerted the authorities.

The Fairbanks bishopric has been without a leader since November of last year, with Archbishop Roger Schweitz of Anchorage leading in the interim after Fairbanks Bishop Donald Kettler was reassigned to Minnesota a year ago.

According to a release from the Fairbanks diocese, Bishop Elect Zielinski is expected to be ordained on Dec. 15.

]]>http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2014/11/10/pope-names-new-bishop-for-fairbanks-and-northwest-alaska/feed/1Food Security, Climate Change Top Rural Agenda at AFNhttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2014/10/27/food-security-climate-change-top-rural-agenda-at-afn/
http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2014/10/27/food-security-climate-change-top-rural-agenda-at-afn/#commentsMon, 27 Oct 2014 22:53:49 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=12499Even while celebrating the legal victory of Katie John, many at AFN recognized the challenges to food security posed by climate change that still lie ahead.]]>http://www.knom.org/wp-audio/2014/10/2014-10-27-afn-bush-caucus.mp3

Climate change and food security were the focus of much of the conversation about rural areas at this year’s Alaska Federation of Natives convention.

But this year’s AFN convention was also focused on celebration for Katie John, the Athabascan woman whose fight to use her family’s traditional subsistence fishing grounds along the Copper River was at the heart of nearly three decades of litigation that focused on state or federal supremacy along Alaska rivers—and, by extension, the priority of subsistence users on those waterways throughout the state.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the state’s appeal in the Katie John case back in March, effectively closing the case, but the victory for subsistence users that was just shy of 30 years in the making didn’t fade in the intervening months, and a sense of triumph was pervasive throughout this year’s convention.

“We [in the Bering Strait/Norton Sound] have been just as involved as any other region in the Katie John issue over the years,” said Robert Keith, chair of regional nonprofit Kawerak. “So it’s a bit of a celebratory mood for us in our region.”

Despite the legal victory, Keith and others at AFN said they know issues remain; rapid environmental changes like rising sea levels, coastal erosion, and thawing permafrost are growing burdens on subsistence users who rely on healthy ecosystems, according to AFN’s committee on climate change.

Those burdens more acutely felt in Alaska than elsewhere in the country, said Fran Ulmer, a former state legislator, Juneau mayor, and lieutenant governor, who now heads the nation’s Arctic Research Commission. Ulmer said the committee is emphasizing local action when state and federal bodies move too slowly.

“Communities have to be better prepared to accept the change, to anticipate it, and to rely on themselves to be able to deal with things like the flooding in Galena that took place,” she said to AFN attendees Friday.

Co-management of subsistence resources was highlighted as a way to improve food security for Alaskans in rural areas, particularly when it comes to declining salmon stocks on the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers.

Myron Naneng with the Association of Village Council Presidents said a long-sought “seat at the table” for subsistence users could become a reality with the announcement of a new pilot project of tribal co-management planned for the Kuskokwim River. It was a move Naneng and others pushed for after years of Chinook salmon decline and unprecedented fishing restrictions this past summer.

“Right now, out in the Bering Sea, there’s an allocation for the trawl fleet, and an allocation for escapement into Canada,” Naneng said. “In between are people that live on the river system. We need our people to have an allocation, for food. Because of the uncertainties we have seen throughout the years with that management system, our people are going to have to be involved directly in the management and have a say in when to fish and when not to fish.”

Neither Naneng nor federal officials developing the pilot project could say how long before any project would be in place. In her address to the convention Saturday, Senator Lisa Murkowski said officials think it could take up to 18 months. With summer fishing just eight months away, Murkowski said she remains skeptical, and wants more information on the plan.

“I’m not even certain that we agree on how we define co-management,” she said. “I want to make sure co-management is more than a check-the-box exercise when it comes to some consultation. It has to mean that you are sitting at the table as an equal participant,” Murkowski said, to applause.

The Bush Caucus, connecting lawmakers from the Southeast to Bristol Bay and up through the Norton Sound and the North Slope, spoke to legislative accomplishments in energy this past year, like the fully-funded Power Cost Equalization program, as well as provisions in the state’s gas line deals that would divert portions of gas revenue to rural areas.

Representative Bryce Edgmon from Dillingham pledged climate change and food security concerns will go before the state’s own Arctic Policy Commission, and will also be pushed at the federal level when the U.S. chairs the international Arctic Council in April.

“We’re all working hard to make sure anything related to the arctic properly recognizes the important role that indigenous people play, and also, as we heard earlier, the issue of climate change is properly recognized,” Edgmon said.

Kawerak chair Keith said, despite the enthusiasm for the Katie John victory, he and others in rural areas across Alaska remain keenly aware of the struggles that lie ahead.

“Fighting for our ability to feed ourselves is going to continue,” Keith said, “and I think the pressures are going to continue on our resources. And with the change in the climate, it’s going to be ongoing challenges for us to live off the land.”

The annual AFN convention concluded Saturday evening with closing remarks from Evon Peter, the Vice Chancellor for Rural, Community, and Native Education at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.